"Let no freedom be allowed to novelty, because it is not fitting that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture."
-- Pope Sixtus III

In “Romeo and Juliet,” love is forbidden because Juliet is a Capulet and Romeo is a Montague.

Many in Verona think these two young people should never have fallen in love. But love is not a choice. It overwhelms you and simply is.

Now, change the pronouns

Make Romeo — still a Montague — a she instead of a he, and watch the tragic story unfold.

That will be the scenario this weekend at Lancaster Country Day School, where the school and Theater of the Seventh Sister are collaborating on a production of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

In half the performances, Romeo will be male in a heterosexual romance. In the other half, Romeo will be female in a lesbian romance.

“It’s really been fascinating,” says Kristin Wolanin, director of theater at Country Day and of this production, who’s also playing Lady Capulet. “We are approaching it from different angles within the text.”

Lily Delle-Levine will play Juliet for all four performances.

Cole Stevenson plays the male Romeo on Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. Madison Brown plays the female Romeo on Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

“The cool thing about the two casts is, when it comes down to it, it’s the same love story,” Wolanin says. “It’s the same struggle: We can’t be together.”

The idea came when Wolanin was working out themes for the show.

“I was looking at the idea that in politics, everyone is fighting with each other. Nobody is respecting other opinions.”Brilliant!Nothing quite like hammering conventional group-think into impressionable minds. Obviously a Teacher Of The Year candidate.

Then she started bouncing ideas around with her students.

“(One student said), ‘We need to do something to wake people up, to learn to love each other. Who would care if they were gay?’ ” Wolanin remembers. “And I wondered, ‘Can we?’ And we decided to have two different stories to tell.”

And, she adds, she knew she had a cast of young actors who could handle the two versions.

When the nurse (Cynthia Charles) tells Juliet that female Romeo is a bad choice, she is questioning Juliet about her sexuality as well as her choice of Romeo.

Early in the play, before Romeo has met Juliet, he/she has a crush on Rosalind and tells his/her cousin, Benvolio, that he/she is a victim of unrequited love and that Rosalind does not care.

In the traditional telling, Romeo is simply feeling sorry for himself. But when Romeo is female, the stakes are higher.

“Romeo is coming out to her best friend. She makes the decision to tell Benvolio she is in love with a woman,” Wolanin says. “It’s insane how well this works.”Oh! So close to the truth, Kristin, and yet still completely clueless. "Insane" indeed.

The story is set very loosely in the 1950s, though Wolanin says it is just a nod to the era.

“It’s a time of repression,” she says. “They wear Converse shoes and Donna Reed-ish dresses as a subtle hint for the actors to work with. But this can happen anytime, anyplace.”How about some non-Euclidean sexual verisimilitude, you dumbass? Why not dress them in flannel, cover them in tattoos, and make them depressed and angry at everything?At least you got the suicide thing right. [See My beloved brothers and sisters, you are murdering yourselves! ]

Wolanin is thrilled with her students’ ability to be so flexible: “They are willing to explore, to be in the moment,” she says.Let's find some Shakespeare DNA, clone him, and wait for him to grow up and slap this educatrix silly.

One other thing is essential to remember in the story of Romeo and Juliet: They are young. “We’ve made Juliet 16,” Wolanin says. (Juliet is 14 in the original play.)

Faced with a setback “when you are that age, you think your world is over, that you have no one to talk to,” she says. “You make rash decisions.”

Teenage suicide is a serious issue, one that they are portraying in a sensitive way, Wolanin says..I'll bet she watched the movie "Heathers" fifty times when she was a kid.

Romeo and Juliet “have no therapists, no health groups. That is their world, and we have to respect that,” she says.Everyone would be better off dead rather than wasting an evening watching you rape a great work of art to satisfy your feckless political agenda, you cow.

Both Romeo and Juliet feel as though life is worthless without each other.

“We bring it back around to the theme of the play. Their love is so intense, so deep.”TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

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About Me

First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct.
"My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up.
What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.